Seagate ST31000340AS Barracuda review

1TB for less than £100, are they serious?

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Our Verdict

Say what you want about this drive, but it gives you a terabyte of storage for under one hundred pounds. 'Nuff said.

For

Fantastic price

Good performance

Well built

Against

Doesn't quite match the performance of most rivals

The idea that a terabyte of storage can be considered mainstream seems hilarious, but that's the case with the Seagate ST31000340AS Barracuda.

With a 32MB cache, native command queuing and 8.5ms access times, this apparent truck of a drive doesn't lag far behind the once-nippy WD Raptor. It offers nowhere near the performance of some SSDs or the WD Velociraptor, but it does prove that capacity and performance are not the natural enemies they once were.

The ideal PC would have a V-Raptor or SSD as the boot and main apps drive, and something like this as a secondary drive.

Despite the rise and rise of the SSD, the sheer value of this makes it a setup model that's not likely to change soon. So, not terribly exciting, but it's an incredible price.